Reykjavík Grapevine - jun 2023, Page 14

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“I think the important question is if
it is enough and okay to just look at
what happens within the country,”
says Jukka Heinonen, a professor
of Sustainable Built Environments at
the University of Iceland’s Faculty of
Civil and Environmental Engineer-
ing. “And Iceland is a great example
in this context because it’s import-
ing so much and producing so little
of what is utilised in society. It’s a
hugely affluent country and actually
relies extremely heavily on others to
produce what Icelanders think they
need or what they want to have in
their lives.”
Jukka has published studies on the
consumption-based carbon foot-
print of Icelandic households and
found that, despite the country’s
green energy, household emissions
in Iceland are equivalent to house-
holds throughout the EU. In fact, he
found that Iceland’s actual carbon
footprint is 55% higher than the
emissions it is generating within its
territory simply because of the vol-
ume of goods it imports. In this way,
the burden of the emissions driv-
en by Icelandic consumption falls
squarely on developing nations.
The result is what Jukka has called a
“low carbon illusion” where affluent
countries believe they’re curbing
their emissions, but global emis-
sions continue to grow.
“If you only look internally, then the
situation can end up that a country
– our country – can be declared a
model for a low-carbon future. And
then at the same time, the global
emissions just go up and it’s not be-
cause of other countries or not nec-
essarily because of other countries
not caring about climate mitigation,
but because they are producing
what is being exported to these
so-called climate leader countries,”
Jukka explains.
“So I’m a little bit worried about
this kind of focus entirely on what
happens within the boundaries of
a certain country or this territorial
perspective to emissions,” he con-
tinues, “that it will lead to not very
successful climate change mitiga-
tion because then it allows for the
outsourcing of emissions to other
countries.”
Other nations have announced in
recent years that they’re going to
be taking more responsibility for
these spillover emissions. That is
the direction Jukka hopes climate
leaders like Iceland will also take.
Its larger global carbon footprint is
also an important metric for Iceland
to consider as it undertakes large
scale development projects that re-
quire the import of mass amounts of
construction materials at the same
time it is trying to meet emissions
targets.
“Iceland is actually trying right now
to measure or at least get a gener-
al idea of these so-called spillover
effects,” Jukka explained. “And I
think that the next step would need
to be that it would be quantified in
a robust, acceptable way. I would
like to see that the step beyond that
would be that Iceland would at least
have some kind of a future target
when they would start taking some
kind of a responsibility over those
emissions as well.”
In addition to Iceland thinking be-
yond its own borders when calcu-
lating its emissions targets, Jukka
would like to see a shift in how
the country provides the highest
amount of well-being to the popu-
lation without it being linked solely
to economic growth. “There could
be growth in those sectors that are
beneficial in terms of mitigating
climate change, for example, and
providing well being,” he says. “That
would be looking beyond just the
economic perspective to it and in-
stead look at the real well being and
the future well being of society.”
PUTTING THEIR MONEY
WHERE THERE MOUTH IS
As Ack told the OK Bye conference,
“the current approach [governments
have been taking] is incremen-
tal and the change is exponential.
We’re trying to beat an exponential
problem with incremental actions.
That is a receipt for failure.”
The good news, if innovators in the
climate space are to be believed,
is that we have the tech and the
knowledge and innovation to take
more and bigger action against the
problem. What is needed is money
to fund these solution.
“When I was in parliament,” Smári
recalled, “I was asking like, ‘OK,
you’ve got this great ambition here.
Where’s the money to back it up?’
Because at the end of the day,
anything that the government does
needs to be paid for. If you’re not
paying for the outcomes, you’re not
actually going to get the outcomes.”
If the government is going to make
a real dent in its climate goals and
not simply continue to fall back on
its self-perpatuated images as a
geothermal haven, there has to be
more money funnelled into forestry,
bike lanes, taking old cars off the
road and other similar initiatives that
Smári said have positive impacts.
There has to be a shift to self-re-
liance, local production and more
accountability for our environmental
impact as it extends far beyond our
borders.
There is a chance for Iceland to
make significant steps toward
reaching its climate goals and to
contribute to the world collective-
ly reaching a place where we can
focus on repair and graduating into
a symbiocene, a place where we’re
working with and for nature rather
than continuing on the destructive
path we’ve been on.
It’s going to take more than geother-
mal energy and electric cars.
OK, you’ve got this great am-
bition here. Where’s the mon-
ey to back it up? Because at
the end of the day, anything
that the government does
needs to be paid for. If you’re
not paying for the outcomes,
you’re not actually going to get
the outcomes.